All posts by cjcalvert

My strategy is a simple one, yet a long process. The first thing that one should do is read the text without annotating. This is to help expose you to the text, to help get you comfortable with the content.

The next thing, after you finish reading it once, read it again. However, this time you want to annotate with a black pen or whatever. This is to gain a better understanding of the content of the text.

After annotating the text for the first time, skim through the notes you made and the underlined details you found and write notes in a different colored pen. This is to analyze why you made the notes that you did and why you found them important and why you found the details that you found important.

After analyzing the notes you made, go back through the text and repeat the process an additional two times, each time with the same two pens, on being for the annotations, one being for the analysis.

For maximum results, be sure to be in a quiet room that you are very comfortable in and are able to relax. This let’s you focus on the material rather than the things going on around you.

On the day of Hallows’ Eve, we spent class in the computer lab. We talked about our blogs and how we are going to be migrating over to a new medium, which makes sense. We discussed things like the professionalism, commenting, and hyperlinks to “cite” people (despite it not being a proper citation).

The way to hyperlink, we simply create a link using the person’s name; for example, I’m going to link to Bill. Now, one can go to his blog and look at what he has to say.

Another thing we discussed is commenting on the blogs. I believe in the notion that we as scholars should collaborate and let our voices be heard. We have to work together as writers and scholars to let our ideas develop and grow while exploring a new medium.

On Wednesday, whilst we were sitting in the grass, we discussed the different moves that we use in everyday arguments and how we can translate them to our papers. In order to do this, we “drew” illustrations that mostly went along with the idea of either organic growing or mechanical building.

I gave the example of my brother who grew in size and thus, (having the capability of) growing in skill in hockey. In this analogy, I explain that as we grow, we become more experienced and this could be the same for argument. This was an example of the “organic” growth.

On the other hand, Gunther gave the example of building things and how when we argue, we continue building upon those skills. In this, he created the “mechanical” analogy.

As a synopsis, we expanded on the idea that as we grow or as anything is built upon, we gain experience with our arguments that we should, and normally don’t, apply to our papers. Bill says that professors are always seeing papers that have ideas that do not form connections, and the entire point of the exercise was to form connections between our arguments and our lives.

This experience of writing about three things that have nothing to do with each other proved to be a great exercise in connecting things. In my case, using poetry. It proved to be simple and connected these things complexly.

We talked about how serious related to our class, and we found that we can apply quite a few of the definitions that we discussed to the things we do in class. However, we can also make the claim that we can apply the definitions of the word “serious” to our educational experience.

One aspect of my educational experience is my experience in creative writing, as my major is in creative writing. In the aspect of an author, I brought up the point that the word “serious” is a tone. My example was that if I am writing a particular in which someone is dying, naturally, you would assume that it has a serious tone to the scene as opposed to a scene in which two people are talking, and laughing.

Another example that equates to the field of creative writing would be the definition that states that serious means to be focused and determined. As an author I get asked “What has writing taught you?” and my answer is and always will be “persistence and focus”. Contrary to popular belief. writing a novel of any length, it takes a lot of perseverance and mental stability to write a novel of any kind. It takes discipline to force yourself to focus on creating something of this length and that’s where the difficulty of writing comes in.

The meanings that we constructed of the word “serious” can be applied to our educational experiences, not just mine, but others like a business major or an engineering major. It applies to all of these because taking your education into your own hands requires a sense of seriousness in order to be successful.

As scholars we have to learn how to tease words out and to rethink the meanings of words. In class, we discussed the meaning of the word serious. At first, describing the word “serious” was like trying to describe the color red without using red. However, there are a loy of ways that we can attribute the many definitions we have given the word “serious” to this class.

The first thing I would talk about is our note taking. A definition that we can apply to this would be the one that is direct or is thought of as an expectation. Our instructor emphasizes the importance of taking notes, making it an expectation to take good notes. Another example is expressing importance, also what our instructor does in our note taking. Not only does he emphasize the importance of note taking, but the importance of certain things that we should put in our notes.

Another example is the self assessments, a definition we had was very determined and focused. One should be focused when writing a self assessment. Focused on what they learned, what they could improve on, etc. Another definition would be earnestness, not to be confused with honesty, though that is an aspect. One should be earnest and thoughtful to write a serious self assessment.

The many definitions of the word “serious” apply to many aspects of this class. Overall, one should take it seriously (forgive the pun). In this class it is also important to tease out words and figure out what they really mean. Because words have a different meaning every time you put them on paper.

As an English major, it is important to know what words mean. It is also important to know how to research the topic I wish to write about. For example, as a blogger, I have to do research on the issue I write about, like the Ray Rice incident or Anita Sarkeesian. I have to use research to be well informed and informed enough so that I can write enough about a topic that gives the impression that I am well informed.

I also write novels and short stories. When a certain story takes place in a certain time period, I have to research that time period and have enough inquiry to know what to look for.

We began conversation with the dictionary definition of the word query and stated that it means to question. We then asked what inquiry meant and I gave my own example of what it meant specifically to me, using my blog as an example.

The evolution of the discussion mostly involved the evolution of our interpretations of the word “inquiry” then the phase “academic inquiry”. We then came to the consensus that academic inquiry is structured query as stated by Luke and James. They explained that it would be guided by an instructor.

While I disagreed with the conclusion at first, saying that it does not necessarily have to be for academic purposes, I came to agree when they said that it is structured research. We then came to the conclusion that academic inquiry is actually going out and doing structured research while query is simply asking the question.